Courage in a Time of Fear

When Male Cattle Lactate...

There was a time, only several days ago, when I would have cast the above title into the same box as "if pigs could fly" or some other nonsensical absurdity. But an article crossed my desk that grabbed my attention. More because of who had written it than the actual title, because I read the author a lot and she's no-nonsense. As it turned out, the article in question was not written in jest. But it was about beef steers (castrated beef bulls) that were found to be lactating at slaughter. Male cattle, similar to human males, have small nipples that vaguely resemble their female counterparts. And the breaking story is that about 20% of conventionally produced feedlot beef are producing milk—to the point where it can be expressed from the nipples similar to a lactating cow. I’m relatively open-minded, but this was wildly far-fetched even to me. I raise cattle. A steer is a castrated male bovine. A steer does not get pregnant, nor does it have a calf—which is a prerequisite for female cattle to lactate. At first, I thought it must be a joke. But the author of the article had brought the receipts and was a source I know and trust. The subject has been officially studied (although only to a degree) at West Texas A&M University, along with researchers from Cargill Protein. In the study, 20,481 finished cattle originating from 33 feedlots were examined, out of which 6,078 were found to be lactating, all outside of pregnancy and calving. Before delving into this further, a little cattle terminology might be helpful. A heifer is a female bovine that has never given birth. It’s strange for a heifer that has never had a calf to be lactating. But a steer is a castrated male bovine. A steer producing milk takes strange to another level. The Texas A&M study showed that among native beef heifers, 28.77 percent were lactating. Among dairy-cross heifers, an astonishing 55.81 percent were lactating. Among native steers, 14.55 percent were lactating. Among dairy-cross steers, 19.66 percent were lactating. I’m still having trouble comprehending these numbers. A few steers lactating could be dismissed. A one-off. A freak occurrence. But 15-20% demands attention. I raise grassfed grass-finished beef and have for over 15 years. While our cattle are in many ways the same type of animal raised in feedlots, we don’t use hormonal implants. I have never seen a steer lactate. Neither have any of our heifers produced milk prior to calving. Why do I mention implants? Because at least 90% of feedlots steers and heifers have hormonal implants applied between placement in the feedlot and slaughter. Hormonal implants are a simple device attached to the ear that slow-releases substances like estradiol, zeranol, and trenbolone acetate in order to manipulate endocrine pathways because doing so increases growth and improves feed efficiency. Scientists have known since at least the early 1970’s that lactation can be induced in bovines outside of pregnancy via hormone manipulation. Using substances like estradiol and progesterone, researchers were able to hormonally induce dairy heifers to lactation without pregnancy and calving. To be clear, inducing heifers to lactation is not achieved using the exact pathways used in beef to increase growth and feed efficiency. However, there is overlap in the compounds used in both situations. Estradiol (an estrogen enhancer), for example, is used in both situations. The study I cited earlier did not record whether or not the animals had implants, but we can be relatively sure some did, given the ubiquity of hormonal implants in feedlot beef. The hypothesis given by the researchers was that excess body fat in beef animals can increase estrogen production and could contribute to galactorrhea—milk production unrelated to normal pregnancy and birth. It’s not uncommon for research to have what I call no-go areas, which is to say there are certain factors that are essentially off-limits in order to obtain funding for the study, which is often funded by either the industry or by land-grant universities that are heavily subsidized by agricultural industry. I don’t know if this was the case in this particular study or not, but Texas A&M is a land-grant school, and hormonal implants are considered the holy grail in the beef industry. To have a study portray them unfavorably would not be appreciated by the beef industry. Do I think implants play a part? Yes, I do. But I don’t know—because it hasn’t been studied. And that’s the exasperating part of this whole discussion. Certain things, seemingly, are protected to the point where too much is on the line to allow an honest review. Knowing, perhaps, would upset the apple cart. Maybe the researchers are right. Perhaps it’s all about body fat. But then again, maybe implants also play a role. Maybe it’s diet. Maybe it’s a combination of more than one of these factors. Nevertheless, something in the biological environment is telling the mammary glands of castrated males to produce milk. I want to know more. Were steers lactating at anything approaching these rates in 1950? In 1970? In 1990? Were slaughterhouse workers seeing this for decades while nobody thought to count it? Or is this a modern phenomenon? More, is it a bridge too far to ask what this means beyond cattle? Human beings also live in a complicated endocrine environment, more so than ever. Endocrine disrupters are a rising concern, whether it’s chemicals in plastics, water, cosmetics, or food. We are exposed to multiple substances that potentially affect our hormonal systems. Meanwhile, in meat production, we intentionally manipulate animals’ endocrine systems to make them grow more efficiently. Whatever is making these steers lactate has not been proven to instigate a particular health problem in humans. We don’t know that. But if factors in the environment, diet, or management of our food animals is producing an endocrine effect dramatic enough to make castrated male beef animals’ lactate, we should know what that something is. We should also be concerned whether or not it has downstream consequences for the animal, the meat, or the people who eat it. Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s concerning enough that we should find out. Hormonal implants work. That’s why the industry uses them. They allow cattle to gain weight faster and convert feed more efficiently. The question of the day--especially regarding the modern food system—is: What are we willing to trade for efficiency? Is it early pubescence in girls? A growing estrogen-related infertility crisis in men? How about increased risk for certain cancers or disturbances to the nervous system? These are all endocrine related issues that are widespread in our day. I’m not saying lactating male cattle, hormonal implants, or anything else mentioned in this article are causing the human health problems I just mentioned. We don’t know that to be true. Most health-related matters are not caused by any single one contributor. But thinking people tend to notice similar language. And no one can be blamed for connecting dots between hormone manipulation in food animals and endocrine problems among humans. We can all draw conclusions as whether or not we believe these things are connected. But unfortunately, for lack of actual scientific study, we can’t know for sure. All we can do is notice common practices in certain sectors of agriculture and see that it causes very strange unintended consequences (such as lactating male cattle). And then we can wonder what the unintended consequences are when humans consume the resulting food coming from such a system. And that’s The View from the Country.

A Bold Return to Giving A Damn

Some time ago, a patron and friend recommended a book to me. As I’m wont to do when a book sounds interesting, I purchased it. And read it with much interest and pleasure. The title, the same as the title of this article—is interesting in itself—and the book even more so. Written by Will Harris, A Bold Return to Giving a Damn is the story of a piece of land being in the Harris family from 1866 to the present. The first two generations, of course, managed it successfully without chemicals or any of the agricultural tools of modern science, which means they produced food within the confines of nature, being forced to respect the natural cycles and yields nature offered. These two generations were livestock farmers that primarily marketed their product to local eaters—in a time when food was by necessity local. Will Harris’ father, however, introduced to synthetic nitrogen as a fertilizer in the 1940’s, steered the ranch into modern American agriculture, which is to say pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic nitrogen for the land. Parasiticides, antibiotics, and steroids for the cattle. Taking cattle from pasture into an on-farm feedlot, and selling the remaining beef calves into commodity markets rather than marketing them to local eaters. It’s the story of several generations of men who had work ethic, swagger, grit, savvy, and by the 4th generation, used “with impunity” (his words) the host of tools modern agribusiness offered, to the detriment of the natural resources in his care. Will, fourth-generation Harris, tells his story in what is part memoir, part manifesto, in a very entertaining writing style—course enough to show his macho irreligious Harris character, but well-worded and on-point in a way that brings out his vision for a friendlier and more responsible food and farming model. Here’s a brief glimpse; I was a very industrial cattleman. It was a system predisposed to excesses—and I loved that part of it. The alpha-male, testosterone-charged person that I was relished the chance to play hardball now that I had control of things on the farm, and the game came naturally to me… I had a foot on the pedal and a hand on the brake—high-carbohydrate, grain-based diets promoted super-fast growth, then pricey pharmaceutical drugs took down the painful bloat and liver infection that resulted. The results were hard to deny…I was a hard-pushing commodity cowboy and I’d mastered the skills better than just about anyone else around me. Until one day I looked around at what I was doing and said, This sucks. This sucks real bad. Starting to care about the resources in his care (giving a damn), according to the book, came from a completely non-religious point of view, rather a repulsion to his own overly aggressive use (abuse) of agri-chemicals, antibiotics, parasiticides, etc. He was not hurting financially, was debt-free, and paid plenty of taxes every year. In his words; I was sitting pretty, from anyone else’s perspective. But my perspective had changed—kind of like when a small corner of your house becomes the junk zone…and you realize it won’t ever go away unless you make a very conscious decision that This sucks. I am cleaning this s**t up! That’s how it was for me, nothing lofty or philosophical or grand. Just a C-student’s aha that he didn’t like what he was doing, and now he wasn’t going to do it anymore. The conclusion of "farming-this-way-is-wrong" when it doesn't stem from a moral or religious conviction, or from financial hardship is rare. Most people, I would say, come to regenerative farming and food production from either financial pressure or from something of a moral conviction. And yes, in a sense Will Harris had something of a moral dig when, as he writes; "One day in the fall of 1995, I stood at our corrals and watched a hundred head of five-hundred-pound calves get loaded on a double-deck eighteen-wheeler that would wrench them out of their coastal savannah eco-system and transport them to a massive feedlot thirteen hundred miles away in a very different eco-system, the high plains of Nebraska...I knew from two decade of experience what would happen when they left my farm: a thirty-hour ride with each steer jammed up against the next, deprived of food, water, or rest; the steers on the top deck peeing and shitting on the ones on the bottom. Transporting calves this way off the farm to big feedlots in Iowa or Nebraska was absolutely standard in our industry...But standing there looking at it on this particular day, something changed in me. I wish I could say that God spoke to me or that I saw a burning bush; but it wasn't that dramatic. It was just that something that had always felt reasonable and rational to me suddenly felt very wrong...It suddenly felt like raising your daughter to be a princess and then sending her to the whorehouse" The book, to me, is a very enjoyable read, weaving in and out of where contemporary agriculture went wrong, the hard realities of reversing course, and the satisfaction of seeing—after a few decades, the results—on the farm, in the livestock, and in the community, of actually giving a damn about the outcome. Will Harris paints the story—in a personal way—of how reckless food and farming policies have vastly diminished America’s natural resources, how in the big scheme of things government, agribusiness, agricultural academia, and even the farming community have been so drunk on “progress”, on technology, on agricultural exports, and on “feeding the world” that essentially the entirety of the agricultural and grocery sectors have stopped giving a damn about any sort of long-term vision for the future of food and farming in America, not to mention the health of Americans. His is the story of exactly what the book title implies—returning to a place where one begins to care again. To me, that’s profound. It’s profound because I see the same phenomenon around me—farmers stuck in the conventional mentality, not looking further than the current generation, if even that. Agribusiness continually coming up with new ever-more-egregious ways to subvert nature, with no thought of how their innovation helps or hurts our finite natural resources, not to mention the food animals it’s intended for. Even eaters, stuck in a consumeristic mindset that food needs to be pre-prepared and “affordable”, with little thought of how it’s produced or what producing it does to our children’s survivability. Yes, it may be a cultural phenomenon—especially for farmers and eaters, but it’s also the essence of ill-informed and thoughtless decision making. Not giving a damn about things as essential as food and farming, regrettably, is commonplace in America. But let all excuses be gone—if someone as deeply entrenched in chemical conventional farming, as tuned out to what is natural and sustainable, as rough and reckless and irreligious as Will Harris (I mean no disrespect, rather a deep respect for the 180 degree about-face he did) can make a bold return to giving a damn, then any one of us—whether we’re farmers or eaters—can do the same. Never has it been more necessary. And that’s the View from the Country. Quotes Worth Re-Quoting -“The food that came out of the [industrialized] system was artificially cheap - the price was subsidized by the environment, our wildlife and aquatic life, and our bad health. We just couldn’t see those hidden costs - nor could we grasp how future generations would inherit the effects of our extractive, intensive farming methods. When you add up all the ways the bill is coming due, it takes the shine off the glittering promises of postwar industrialized food. The deal we made with our planet, its creatures, and our rural workforces, all so we could enjoy a slightly cheaper hamburger, might just be the worst deal that was ever made.”~ Will Harris Our family and our farm participated in creating the bedrock of rural America, then inadvertently helped to crack that foundation by participating in the industrialized, centralized, commoditized system that rendered rural America close to obsolete. We traded the autonomy of the small farmer for the security that came by scaling up; then we began to risk degradation and disrepair to our land, animals, and community as a result. And we participated in a system that sold consumers a bucolic image of farming that wasn't actually true. ~ Will Harris

Can MAHA Succeed?

Whether we see it as such or not, MAHA is a movement by the people and for the people. Before it was known as MAHA, it was simply a rising concern among an increasing number of in-the-know people who learned how bad our food, farming, and health situation is in America. The question is; Can it succeed as a government mandate? I may be vilified for my skeptical views on this, but I'm nevertheless, here goes. I believe RFK Jr. will give it his all and will work very hard to make it a success. He has a long-standing passion for children's health, even to the point of hiving up a presidential campaign and joining "the other side" in order to exercise influence in public health. But I’m skeptical that MAHA can be successful to the extent he wishes to make it successful. Don’t read into this what I’m not saying, his intent, as I see it, is sincere and he’s probably the best person for the movement, along with Jay Bhattacharya and Marty Makary. I don’t wish to be paranoid, or to discourage anyone who believes in MAHA. It’s just that I look at the massive agency HHS is, the vast number of people who are part of it (including all the agencies under HHS like FDA and USDA), and I’m skeptical that such a vast organization can meaningfully backtrack from the direction it was pointed for at least thirty years. Not to mention whether the bureaucracy within wants to backtrack. The term “permanent Washington” refers to people in bureaucratic positions who stay there from one presidential administration to another. I think this is more real than most Americans realize. Undoubtedly, there are people within these agencies who are willing to wait out an administration who disagrees with their agenda. This will include people who are willing to give lip service to a sitting president or other leading figure for the sake of appearances, only to continue the previous course (back to the original agenda) when he is gone. I’m with everyone else, watching and waiting hopefully to see what secretary Kennedy is able to achieve on the vaccine front, with food guidelines, regenerative agriculture, and the like. But I'm hopeful in a dubious sort of way. I look at the track record of past agendas like MAHA—programs that are for the people at the expense of government control—and can’t help but being cynical. I think the likelihood for MAHA to be sidetracked from its original intent is extremely high. Yes, there’s the banning of food dyes—a necessary move. There’s a willingness to study Autism, which I endorse. There’s the separation of vaccines (not as many vaccines in a single shot or visit), which is a necessary initial approach. But even so, the chance for the original agenda to be sidetracked by small wins or bright shiny objects is extremely high, in my opinion. Plus, I’m sure RFK Jr. and the people surrounding him know very well that certain agendas will be met with extreme pushback from industry and the lobbying circuit, which, if you’re in that position, it’s always easy to go for the smaller wins at the expense of the bigger ones. The same likelihood for distraction applies to the people who follow MAHA and support the endeavor. When a people’s movement like this one garner presidential and government attention like MAHA has, it’s very easy for the people (even the early supporters) to be so caught up in rah-rah-rah-ing every small “win” that they lose sight of the bigger agenda and real permanent wins. Let’s recognize that we’re hardwired to want to have someone take care of us. Those of us who have opted out know how difficult it is to take the not-so-well-traveled path of finding life-giving real food, of going against a pediatrician’s advice regarding the vaccine schedule, of seeking out alternative health hacks that are poo-poohed by not only the medical industry, but perhaps by family members as well. Therefore, it's quite comforting to see our health strivings go mainstream, being discussed in a presidential campaign, and a celebrated-in-the-health-crowd figure like RFK Jr. being appointed secretary of HHS. But remember, the desire to be taken care of may be stronger than the desire for liberty and independence. Liberty and independence, BTW, require hard work, free thought, and often, ridicule. My concern is that four years, or eight or twelve years roll around, a new administration comes in, and very little has changed that can’t be easily reversed. I hope I’m wrong. The foremost reason for my skepticism is rooted in the fact that MAHA flies directly in the face of the largest and most powerful industries in the country—and perhaps the world. These would include the pharmaceutical industry, the agricultural lobby, the agri-chemical industry, and the American Medical Association. If MAHA goes as it should and treads around on the toes of these industries and the lobbies representing them, and survives the pushback, threats, and ruthlessness, it will be quite a feat. Many of us want to believe RFK Jr. will not compromise, much like the hero many Trump supporters think him to be. But even RFK Jr. must pick his battles, and don’t kid yourself, the battles are real, and the threats, I’m sure, are severe. The industries I mentioned do not handle threats to their agendas with kid gloves. Ruthless is their middle name, and I don’t think they will back away from their long-standing agendas just because RFK Jr. is appointed head of HHS. Plus, the likelihood for the supporters of the movement to become lax because it’s now a government mandate is extremely high. I’m always reminded of Zuby’s “21 things I learned”, which is an excellent short-form recognition of human behavior. Many of the 21 bullet points theoretically apply to this topic. For example, number nineteen, which reads; Modern people are overly complacent and lack vigilance when it comes to defending their own freedoms from government overreach. I think this axiom is true on a much deeper level than most of us recognize. Or number seven; Most people believe the government acts in the best interests of the people. Even many who are vocal critics of the government. Again, this is more widespread than we think. The indoctrination runs deep, and we’re all steeped in the idea of American exceptionalism to the point where we tend to think our government wouldn’t do the things they actually participate in. Perhaps the best one—especially in light of government proceedings—is number twenty; It’s easier to fool a person than to convince them that they have been fooled. To have MAHA sidetracked would certainly not be the first time the people hoped and waited on what they thought was going to be a win for them, only to realize that they had been fooled. The euphoria that takes place among the MAHA supporters as this agenda goes mainstream is a red flag in my opinion. Yes, we should cheer the effort to remedy the problems that plague our national health, food, and farming, but we must remain wide awake and retain a healthy skepticism, because this very “fourth branch of government” is expert at intercepting good agendas. Let’s remember that MAHA began as a movement by the people. Whether or not it succeeds as a government mandate, it is by definition a people’s movement. I daresay it most certainly will not succeed on a governmental level if it doesn’t remain a crusade driven by the people, even though it’s now gone public. The way I see it, this MAHA government mandate may be the best opportunity we have to further solidify the crusade. We have this moment to take advantage of the door of regulation being ajar and practice our God-given food and health freedoms more boldly than ever. This is the moment for our generation to sacrifice other consumeristic desires for the sake of real food and honest healthcare. If you’re inclined to not vaccinate your children, now is the time to shamelessly inform your doctor or pediatrician, and to stand firm in your decision. If you’re a farmer interested in providing food for the growing number of people seeking unadulterated farm fresh food, now is the time to just do it without too much concern over whether or not your state or county allows it. If you’re an eater who wants to buy raw milk or non-USDA meat, now is the time to push the envelope with your farmer (and your family) without first seeking approval all around. The early stirrings of what is now known as MAHA began with people who took risks with the food police, the vaccine police, and even with their disapproving family members. They were often vilified socially by friends and family and persecuted legally by an overarching layer of bureaucracy. Now that MAHA is mainstream effort, let’s not relax and think we’ve achieved the goal. Let’s accelerate and boldly give this our best shot. It may be the only one we have. And that’s The View from the Country.

Courage in a Time of Fear

More from the blog

When Male Cattle Lactate...

A Bold Return to Giving A Damn

Can MAHA Succeed?

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